Rod Doherty: Remembering Ted Kennedy

Sunday

Aug 30, 2009 at 3:15 AMAug 30, 2009 at 6:32 AM

By Rod DohertyExecutive Editor

The headline topping Page D3 of the Boston Globe's 12-page special section Thursday memorializing the life of U. S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy read: "Agree with him or not, you had to like Ted Kennedy."

That headline is on a column written by Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen.

As a native of Massachusetts, and from a family of longtime Republicans, I thought that Cullen's stories recounting his personal knowledge of and relationship to Kennedy was a comfort to many of us who had political differences with Kennedy over the years. Cullen appropriately noted: "It is an undeniable truth that the people who disliked Ted the most were those who knew him least. It was very hard to dislike Ted Kennedy if you knew him, even if you didn't share his politics."

In the three vignettes that follow here, I do not intend to pretend I knew Kennedy or had much to do with any direct contact with his politics. If these stories seem pretentious, dear reader, you have my apologies. That is not the intent. I am just your local newspaper editor recounting stories of how Kennedy and I crossed paths.

Newburyport, Massachusetts: A lesson in charisma.

I recall a summery day in Newburyport in or around 1975, when I first met Kennedy.

I hadn't been at my first-ever newspaper job as a city reporter at the Newburyport Daily News too long. The late John O'Neil, managing editor, surprised me with the offer of an opportunity to join two other news staffers for an interview with Kennedy.

Ted Kennedy was not high on my list of respected politicians. The accident at Chappaquiddick and my perception of the resultant overt political manipulations and lack of justice in that incident had not too long passed. And, perhaps because of my long Republican history, I never had the same slavish respect for the Kennedy name or family as many did, and still do, in Massachusetts.

That has softened over time.

In any case, the young journalist ego made taking the opportunity to participate in the interview an easy choice. Kennedy would be my first interview with a nationally prominent politician.

With a small police escort, as I remember, and a couple of young aides, the comparatively young Kennedy strode through the front door of the newspaper, shaking hands and making conversation with employees. Just seeing him in person for the first time I was struck at how bigger than life, as they say, he seemed. As he moved along the short distance to the newsroom and the smallish office in which the four of us would talk, I was given lesson number one about the Kennedys: There is a Kennedy mystique.

There is an undeniable charisma about them. Everyone I've ever met who met a Kennedy clan member tells me they felt it.

I would have scoffed at that before my meeting Ted Kennedy.

When he approached, smiled and shook my hand, it was as if there was some sort of electric buzz around him. I was almost stunned by the strength of his presence.

"So this is what it's all about," I remember thinking.

Since then, with more than 34 years of meeting and interviewing candidates for national office, I have sensed this powerful, physical attribute more than a few times. Some of those politicians have become our presidents. I find it fascinating.

As the "cub" reporter, I mostly listened to what others asked in the interview. Getting a chance to speak up, I note Massachusetts is suffering economically and I ask Kennedy what he was doing to help the economy of Massachusetts.

I don't want to be so harsh as to say he snapped at me, but he answered in such a way that he was telling me I didn't know who I was talking to.

In sum he said: "I am a United States senator. I serve the country, and my job is take care of the country and what is good for the country."

I was taken aback both with the tone and the answer. I felt a U.S. senator from Massachusetts should put our state first, or at least express more concern for his constituents. I still don't know if I should consider him right or wrong.

But I would have to say he was true to his commitment. As Cullen noted in his column, Kennedy "has more legislation with his name attached to it, helped more ordinary and vulnerable human beings, than any other senator ever has or ever will."

North Adams, Massachusetts: Ethical conflict I

Checking with friends of that era, we recall it was the summer of 1978. I am the managing editor of the North Adams Transcript.

One morning the newspaper's longtime, legendary photographer, Randy Trabold, drops a batch of black-and-white photos on my desk. Randy knew everyone and could get into any news event any time. He was a newshound.

"What do you think of these?" he said. In front of me is Ted Kennedy, in shorts and no shirt, crouched at a campfire. He's wearing a back brace.

"Where'd you get these?" I asked.

Randy said something like: "Ted's at a campground near here. Not many people know he camps up here."

"Wow, Randy, these are great. I didn't know he wore a brace. This will be big news."

"Oh." Randy says, "You can't use these. He wouldn't have let me take the pictures if he thought they'd go in the paper. No one knows he wears the brace. I told him they wouldn't be in the paper. I see him a lot when he comes up here to camp."

"But Randy," I say again, "this is pretty big news."

"Why did you even show them to me if we can't use them?" I ask.

Randy, honest and straightforward as always, says: "I wanted you to see them."

Now it is an ethical dilemma. Our photographer, right or wrong, had made a personal commitment when he took the photos. As conflicted as I was, I felt I should not break that commitment.

I did not use the photos in the newspaper. Time and again since then I have moments when I question myself over that decision.

Ted Kennedy, Dan Quayle: Ethical Conflict II

Anyone familiar with the presidential race of 1992 has to recall the skewering of President George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidate, Dan Quayle. The media and the public were on Quayle incessantly for everything from the spelling of potato, general intelligence because of bumbling comments and a worry over his ability to lead.

I encountered Kennedy at a news conference in Boston held by a national news organization during the presidential campaign. Kennedy was a luncheon speaker, and during his speech, he seemed to have some positive remarks about Quayle who, as noted, was getting battered, much to the delight of Democrats.

Sometimes it is forgotten Quayle was a U.S. senator from Indiana for eight years. He and Kennedy were associated in the Senate.

After the speech, Kennedy was working his way through a dwindling crowd of editors when we ended up facing each other. I introduced myself as having interviewed him in Newburyport some years back, but more importantly, that I had worked with Randy Trabold in North Adams. Randy had died of cancer not too much earlier.

Probably because of Randy, it surprised me that Kennedy just went on chatting with me, very casually, about those days in the Berkshires, Randy and then his just-given speech.

Whether it was Kennedy or I who mentioned Quayle, this is my remembrance of what Kennedy said: "It's too bad more people don't know the real Dan Quayle. He's a good senator and, for a young guy, he knows how to work the senate and get things done."

As I said, I believe he had said something similar in the speech.

Listening, my brain was locked up on this: "Ted Kennedy is telling me Quayle's not a bad guy when it comes to his work in Senate. How come the GOP isn't pushing this angle?"

And then he had to go, and the conversation was over.

On the drive back from Boston to Dover I went back and forth on what to do: "Kennedy had referenced Quayle in the speech, but he was also talking socially and casually with me when he made the Quayle comment. Is it fair, or ethical, to make this a political story? Would he substantiate and confirm the comment if I called him on it?"

I decided no.

I never wrote about it. While there was no claim between us of the conversation as on or off the record, I classified it as a casual conversation, and using the information would be a personal violation of ethics.

Whenever I tell the story there's a little gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I have learned in my life the gnawing means I have made, or soon will make, a wrong or incorrect decision.

The gnawing says maybe I was just a bit too high-minded.

Ted Kennedy, rest in peace.

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